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Tuesday, September 6, 2011

09042011 Sermon

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be
pleasing in Your sight O Lord, our rock and our redeemer!!AMEN!!

Let us pray!Jesus Christ, You
clearly instruct us in our Gospel this morning what we are to do if our brother
sins against us.May Your wisdom
imparted to us help us understand it is out of love that we try and make things
right.For it is Your love for us that
is the perfect model for what we are to do in our relationships with our
spouse, our children, our brother’s and sisters in Christ and especially with
You.For Your model on the Cross at
Calvary reconciled all of us here at Emmanuel with Your Father in heaven for
all eternity.AMEN.

Michele and I enjoy movies that are from historic time
periods.These include, King Arthur and
Arthurian legends, Celtic, Norwegian and German histories and even Swedish
legends.We recently began a movie
entitled, “Arn”, it is about a Swedish man who becomes a Knights Templar.For those of you unfamiliar, a Knights Templar
is an individual who is a “Warrior for God”.The Knights Templar is best known for keeping pilgrims safe who
journeyed from Saxony and Eastern Europe to the Holy Land on a pilgrimage to
see the holy sites in Jerusalem and the surrounding places where Jesus lived
and ministered.Yes, this is prior to
the Protestant Reformation and therefore Catholicism is the dominant religion.

In the movie “Arn”, the main character as a Templar Knight
remembers his training and the events that brought him to the Holy Land.Yes, it is a love story of sorts, because it
was his love for a woman and her conceiving a child out of wedlock and his
supposedly ‘knowing’ the sister of the woman as well that causes both, Arn and
this woman to be excommunicated from the Church.Their punishment was excommunication and
serving a 20 year sentence for their sin against the Church.

In our Gospel lesson this morning, Jesus tells His followers the
proper way to approach your brother if there is a sin they have committed.One of the most misunderstood words in church
parlance is excommunication.The goal of
excommunication is not throwing someone out of church and heaven for eternity,
but to help and aid the erring person to ‘turn away’ or confess their sin,
receive forgiveness and renew their relationship with their fellow Christians.

Excommunication is in a strange way, how the church continues to
love someone, even if they have violated the church’s rules and or beliefs of
living a Christian life.It is somewhat
strange to consider excommunication as a manifestation of one’s love, but the
truth is the final outcome is for the one who has erred to understand their
impenitence and repent.With love as the
primary motivation it begins to help us understand why our God is a God of
love.

This passage is about love and relationship.One of the best opportunities we have of
relationship today is marriage.And yes,
today we celebrate Jake and Gladys anniversary.The marriage relationship introduced in the Garden of Eden by God
between one man and one woman is formed out of mutual love for one another and
provides us a model of what the relationship can be.In the church relationship is not as intimate
as the marriage relationship, but the love one has for a brother or sister in
Christ is an opportunity in relationship even if we disagree, whether on KU or
K-State, no till or strip till, or even John Deere, Case or New Holland.

Excommunication’s final goal is not separation, but returning the
relationship to its proper understanding and calling.For our relationship with one another is to
be one of mutual support and admonition, upholding one another in prayer,
caring for the spiritual and physical needs we have in our daily walk with
Christ.When excommunication is used in
the church, the proper prayerful desire is reconciliation and return of the
rightful relationship.

For this proper relationship has been modeled for us by Jesus
Christ.In Jesus life, death and
resurrection, He paid the ultimate price to return and make right our
relationship with His Father in heaven, the cost was His death to pay for our
sins.His model, our baptism into His
life, death and resurrection and the call of the Holy Spirit enable us to daily
return our relationship with one another and Him to the place of grace on
bended knee at the foot of Calvary.For
Jesus Christ came to repair our relationship with each other as well as with
Him and His Father in Heaven for all of us saints here at Emmanuel.AMEN.